The Major Case Monologues
by Ink Cat
Summary: Various members of MCS ponder what it is exactly between Eames and Goren, and come to some startling conclusions.
1. Goren

A/N. This here? This is my brain overloading after reading too much BA fanfic. And remember, kiddies: I own nothing. Well, nothing in reference to CI, anyway.

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_Robert Goren_  
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So… I don't know what this is. Like, really and truly have no idea. And I know that for The Great Robert Goren to have nothing up his sleeve and not a clue in the world is unusual.

But I can't help it.

We're partners, sure. Parters, with a capital 'P', we investigate, dig around, and solve. We rock, shortly. We're an efficient, productive team. We work so well together that it's sometimes a little scary. But it's like… every time I think that we're just partners, she'll pull something on me, something that's protective and caring, and beyond partnership. It's what a friend would do. You know, in law enforcement, partnership doesn't necessarily mean friendship. There are partners who would die for each other and there are partners who would run each other over with their squad cars rather than swerve and have to exert a little effort. And I'll think, 'Yeah. That's what we are. We're friends.'

And that's fine. That's great. I mean, my friends are few and far between. I'm an amiable guy, and I have acquaintances who I like well enough, see from time to time and enjoy spending an afternoon with. But real friends? I can count those on one hand. Maybe I just have high standards, or maybe I think that friendship is something more than other people think.

A friend is more than someone who you like to hang with, more than a person with whom you share common interests. It's a person who cares deeply about your well-being. Someone who can talk, but who can also listen. Someone who understands you, and someone who you understand. And I understand Alexandra Eames. And I'm pretty sure that she understands me. And I can talk to her and she'll listen, and she can talk and I'll listen. In the dictionary of Robert Goren, friendship is about five foot five, 120 pounds, dark blonde, and carries a nine millimeter Glock. Eames _defines_ friendship.

And then there are times when I look at her, really look at her, this incredibly woman who's sitting across from me. I'll study the soft sweep of her honey colored hair, tucked shyly behind an ear. I'll watch the keen intelligence flash across those eyes that aren't quite brown but more of a shade between chestnut and gold, and edged with smoky dark lashes. The way that she bites her bottom lip when she's thinkingis endearingly schoolgirl-esque. Her skin is the color of churned cream, soft and pale and delicate, and blush pink at the edges of her cheeks.

I like it when she smiles, really smiles. Not that little sardonic smile that she gives when she's making a prickly remark (although I like that one almost as much). It's wide, and it's sincere, and God, help me, it has dimples. I'm such a goner for that smile.

I'll watch the way that she moves. Even though she's small for her size, she exhibits a kind of grace that I had previously thought to come from tall stature. She has long legs, actually, it's just that most people don't realize it because of her height. It's like a model car: the size is smaller, but the proportions are the same. And maybe comparing my… whatever she is... to a model car isn't entirely romantic. But really, I'm too frustrated to think of a better simile.

Because these days I'm stuck thinking that I can't really tell what kind of a relationship we have. And maybe it's one of those things that can't be labeled, or maybe it's a mixture of so many different things that it's morphed into something different. Maybe it's completely new from anything that anyone's ever seen. Probably not. But I can't help but go a little crazy.

Because I don't quite know what this is. And I just can't stop thinking about her.

But there's something that I don't like to say for fear that I'd jinx it, and for fear that this perfect unknown thing will crumble around me. Something that I don't know if I'll ever be able to say, except to maybe whisper it in her ear. And I'm not so sure that that'll ever happen, either. But it's something that keeps me from imploding with aggravation at my ignorance of what the hell it is that Eames and I are stuck in.

I like it.


	2. Eames

A/N. So, if I didn't post this now, I'd probably have a spaz attack from holding back this chapter. I like this fic, rather a lot. I write how I talk when I'm monologuing for Goren or Eames. And it's ever so fun! Guess what? Shock of shocks, I still don't own CI. Surprised? You shouldn't be!

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_Alexandra Eames  
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I see him give me that look across our desks, the one that quietly questions. Then there's the other one, the one that he wears when he's frustrated. The one that says, "What the bloody fuck?"

It's hard for him. He's got a lot to live up to, I suppose. The Great Robert Goren, pride of Major Case, and all that. He's just confused, and messed up, because he can't figure it out. I'm not surprised. Though Bobby is somewhat of a ladies' man, he couldn't spot romance if it Riverdanced in front of him in a chicken suit singing 'I'm a Little Teapot'.

Oh, I know what this is. I _am_ a detective, after all. And I'm a woman. But I understand his unawareness. I was certainly clueless for long enough. No, I get it now.

I'll catch him staring at me sometimes. It sounds weird and impossible, but it's like I can feel his eyes on me. I never lift my head, never let on that I know that he's watching me. I keep my eyes down and brush it off. I tell myself that it's nothing, but I know that I'm lying.

There are times when he seems so alone that it's almost heartbreaking. I think that he's been abandoned so many times that he has a hard time trusting anyone. When I first got assigned to him, he was wary, as was I. I had heard the rumors about Goren: good looking, 6,000 watt bright and idiosyncratic to the point of near insanity. Demanding. Pushy. Moody. Well, I think that I did what none of his earlier partners had done: I gave him a chance. I reserved judgment, set aside all previously heard whispers that he was "a man on the edge". The edge of what, I would find out from him.

And he appreciated that. He didn't fully trust me - he had been through too much to trust so easily – but I could tell that he was grateful.

But he still seems so alone sometimes. I know that he wants to reach out to me. Hell, I've felt like that often enough. The longing to just be close to another human being, to feel that skin-to-skin contact, even if it's just to touch a hand or a shoulder, an inconspicuous way to generate the warmth that keeps from freezing you in your own icy shell of an existence.

But Robert Goren is as polite as they come. His gentile ways keep him from making anything more of this. And, of course, being overly personal with your partner is a departmental no-no. But more than that, I think that he doesn't quite know what to do about this thing between us. It's been building for a while, now, and I'm surprised that we haven't imploded from the tension. Sometimes we'll be completely normal, and other times we'll realize that we're so close to each other that we can hear each other's heartbeats, and the thing that we want most to do is to just reach out and press our lips together and to hell with holding back, because who wants to do that when something feels this right? And sometimes I feel that if I could just… just tell him what this is, it would all work out.

Oh, I know what this is. This sneaking, creeping thing that insidiously worked its way into our partnership, this thing that sometimes causes my breath to hitch in my throat and my palms to sweat and my mind to swirl because he's so, _so_ beautiful, if a man could ever be described as such, and I just want to reach out before it's too late and I fall off of this precipice and I want to tell him…

_I think that I love you_.

Because that's what it is. It's love.

God, help us. It's love.


	3. Deakins

A/N. Oh-em-gee. Update! What a rare and unexpected thing from Ink! This chapter is Deakins' point of view, but is actually that of pretty much everyone in the squad besides Bobby and Alex. It's not quite as conversational as the last two, so my appologies, but I promise that the next chapter will be "conversational" enough for the whole fic. Just a note, this chapter implies that Goren and Eames have noclue how perfect they are together. The way I envisioned it is that they sort of have an idea that they're in love, but everyone else _thinks_ that they haven't a clue. Does that make sense?

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James Deakins  
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Those two're enough to drive the most patient man alive insane.

And as I'm sure you know, I'm not the most patient man alive. Don't misunderstand me, I am quite patient, but I'm not the _most_ patient. What I'm trying (and not succeeding) insaying is that they'd try the patience of a stone. And stones? They're pretty patient.

Christ, I need new hyperboles.

Anyway…

Those two have been fawning over each other for years. He'll give that shy, boyish smile and she'll look up at him through those dark lashes. Eames is the only woman I've ever seen pull off the doe-eyed act successfully. Probably because for her, it's genuine, not just a ploy to entice male attention (though, of course, she receives that, too.)

The woman really doesn't realize that she's got every avaliable man (and most of the unavaliable ones, too) wrapped around her pinky finger. Alex walks into a room and everyone's eyes are drawn to her. Her charisma is palpable. As far as they're concerned, she's their sweetheart, and they'd do anything to protect her.

As for her partner, well, he's a different story. They respect him, but in a grudging sort of way borne of his habit of popping into others' cases just long enough to issue a bit of spot-on information. Although this is undoubtably helpful, MCS boys are completely territorial. Needless to say, these intrusions (though Bobby would never think of them that way; he's the teamwork poster-child and never picks up on their animosity) aren't particularly welcome, but are almost always brilliant and often lead to the case-breaker.

They put up with him, though, because like Alexandra Eames, he's theirs. They may complain and grumble about him in the bullpen, but at the end of the day when they go out for drinks with their buddies from other precincts, they'll smile and defend him from other officers' accusations, call him a genius, say that he's quirky but brilliant. In the end, he's still one of them, and even if he irritates them sometimes, they see how special he is and admire him, albeit jaundicedly.

Him and Alex... they're the Golden Couple, an untouchable ideal. They're this glowing center of the squad - incredible but somehow distant, like the popular kids in junior high that you knew everything about but didn't actually know. And everyone else will watch them walk through the room, watch her toss her hair and offer a witty comment and see him give that charming little half-smile in response. They'll hear the stories, passed down through the ranks in the way thatpolice tales are, of flawless interrogations, arrested perps and new crime scenes, of the way Bobby cut his hand to scare a suspect, and Eames' snark, and how he was the first person she'd called after she'd given birth.

There's an ongoing belief that one day they'll get together. There's one thing that makes them feel equal tothe Golden Couplesometimes, and it's the fact that they know something Alex and Bobby don't. When you're on the outside looking in, it's easy to see the subtle dances that they do, the little nuances of courtship that they don't even recognize.

She'll let her hand rest on his head sometimes, and the room will stand still, and everyone will watch, but Goren and Eames are both oblivious to this attention. She'll ruffle his salt-and-pepper curls affectionately and he'll look up at her and their eyes will connect for a moment before they're moving again, falling back into work, and everyone else is doing the same and pretending that they weren't watching every move the two made. There are other times when he'll lean over her shoulder to read off of her computer screen or paperwork, and his eyes will flick to the delicate curve of her throat and the auburn silk of her hair. Everyone can tell that he wants to press a gentle kiss there, but resists because he thinks that they're only partners, only friends, and that he shouldn't. Everyone silently eggs him on, tellshim to make a move, urges her to open her eyes and see the way that he looks at her and she at him. And every time, he'll decline, and she'll keep her eyes open just wide enough to see only what's right in front of her.

They're comforted to know, however, that it'll happen one day. When it comes to people like them, it always does.

So you see, we're really not all that in the dark. We know what this's been leading up to all these years. It's a gentle, slowly growing thing, but soon it'll bloom. And like the good observers that we are, we'll watch every move, and pat ourselves on the back when it's all over, because we saw it when even they didn't.


End file.
